On 14/08/07, Ron Teitelbaum <Ron at usmedrec.com> wrote:
> Hi Brad,
>
> It's not just sinking in that is an issue.  I'm also considering the
> practical aspects.  Also I'm not exactly sure how this all fits with
> Andreas' suggestion of managing packages outside the context of an official
> image.
>
> I can't help seeing the down side to all of this, and I wonder what the
> impact will be for those starting out with Squeak.
>
> The issue with too much freedom is that anyone is allowed to break things.
> We have enough trouble as it is with class clutter.  Even I tried
> (unsuccessfully) to add to Collection.
>
> So let's say we go with this path and anyone can start a stream.  How does a
> user decide which stream to use?  If we have two very good streams (like
> Sophie and Croquet) which are changing classes in an incompatible way then
> someone's changes are still lost.
>

The only way then is to remove global system dictionary and make each
package contain own set of globals. So, different versions of classes
with same name can be used for different packages. I see no harm in
this from VM point of view. From dev-s point of view we need to change
dev-tools to support new global values semantics.

A system dictionary is the root of many evil things. I wonder, how
long the community stay victim of this concept, which totally not
suitable for islands/forks development?
A strong decision needed to get rid of it, but once we do this,  then
we freed from many current issues.


-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.